The fourth installment of the “Resident Evil” franchise, which is based on the famous video game of the same name claims to be a science-fiction horror that is centered around Alice (Milla Jovovich), a survivor of the dangerous T virus that struck and ravaged Los Angeles and that turned all those infected into bloodthirsty zombies.
This film has been long awaited by sci-fi/horror fans and therefore the expectations were quite high, maybe even too high for this type of movie. The disappointment it generated was bettered by the very performance of Milla Jovovich, who had had previously delivered nearly impeccable roles as a strong but also vulnerable fatal femme. In this movie, she no longer has the sweetness and youthfulness that made us all fall in love with her, but instead seems to be prematurely aged and poorly retouched with cheap make-up that is completely inappropriate for a sexy superwoman.
But what Milla Jovovich failed to deliver is highlighted by the poorly constructed plot which gives us the impression that the scriptwriter had tried to create action out of nothing. None of the events that take place in Afterlife seem to have any purpose and are only loosely connected to the events from the previous 3 parts of the series. The setting is 4 years after the start of the T-virus pandemic and Alice is now joined by a group of survivors in her aim to reach a mysterious haven know as Arcadia.
She later teams in her quests with an amnesic Claire (Ali Larter) and her brother Chris (Wentworth Miller). Chris is imprisoned in a cage as his jailers believe he may be a dangerous criminal, though he eventually manages to escape the cage and aid the team in evading a zombie attack. Ironically, the producers of this film thought it amusing to use for this breaking out of prison role the very same actor who became famous in the series Prison Break for… breaking out of prison.
All in all, this movie is recommended only to true Resident Evil followers and to diehard science fiction fans that may find the CGI and special effects enticing if not innovative. Sadly, the special effects alone cannot make up for the plot holes and internal logic failures that are constantly observable in this film.